Duplicity
by Blonde Spirit
Summary: Written in response to the 100 quotes challenge over on HPFF challenges. Snape lurks within!


**Dupilicity**

Written in response to the 100 quotes challenge by Professor Doctor on HPFF challenges forum. Please review after you have read, thank you.

**Quote 29 "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I'm more stubborn than you are."**

Bellatrix Lestrange sat between The Dark Lord and Severus Snape, she could not help the intense gaze that landed upon her master, he had always been the only man for her, and he knew it. He knew it and abused it, ordering her to do things that made veteran death eaters quail. But he knew that Bellatrix would never fail him, would never turn from danger while she had breath in her body, she would die for him and he knew that one day, she would. He would not feel guilt or remorse; it was no longer in his nature. Severus Snape also knew this and he had watched Bellatrix change during the second rising. She had returned from Azkaban mad and unstable and The Dark Lord had shut her away from other death eaters for a time, he had taken her to him as Bella craved and she had emerged harder, more focused and infinitely more dangerous. Of all those who may uncover his duality, Snape feared Bellatrix the most, as he knew she would kill him immediately, there would be no talking his way out of it, no appealing that he was working inside The Order of the Phoenix to feed information to the Dark One. Bellatrix would kill him for betrayal of Voldemort, and she would not think twice.

The meeting broke up and Snape followed the others into Lucius Malfoy's drawing room, taking a glass of the offered whiskey and listening to the conversations around him. He thought again about Bellatrix, she simpered to Voldemort but was hard and ruthless with all other death eaters, all knew that she and Malfoy were high in The Dark Lords favour and that they had the most access to him and knowledge of his plans. There was no chance that she would ever be fooled into seduction or friendship by Snape, he was as mistrusted by the death Eaters as he was by Order members, sometimes even he wondered which side his loyalties truly lay, especially when he was reminded of James Potter in the face of his son, who just happened to be The Boy Who Lived. Every time he saw the Potter boy he was filled with sadness. A sadness that Lily had given herself to someone who had made his life almost unbearable. Snape would never and could never love again like he had loved Lily.

Snape left the dark drawing room unnoticed, the way he wanted it, he walked along the hallway noticing the Malfoy portraits glaring down at him with cold eyes and almost shivered, almost. He entered a room to his right, closing the door softly and approaching the fireplace, he needed time to think. The uprising had disturbed memories that he would have rather never remembered.

"I know your intentions Severus, and despite myself, I admire you" Snape heard the unmistakable cackle of Bellatrix behind him, he knew that she used her previous instability to her advantage, that she played on her reputation for insanity when she was actually very calculated.

"My intentions?" he asked, not turning around.

"Poor Snivellus, all alone. Are you not lonely my dark friend?" Bella was now behind him, her hands on his shoulders.

"I like solitude" he replied, a muscle in his cheek jumping at her topic change, designed to unnerve him.

"Solitude can get" she walked around to face him, tracing her black lace clad fingers along his jaw line "Tiresome" she finished.

"What do you want Bellatrix?" he asked her while not breaking her gaze.

"Our master is somewhat…distracted" she sighed, but Snape could see the underlying glint in her eyes "And I find myself frustrated"

"You have a husband" he said.

"A marriage of inconvenience" she said, now twirling his hair around her fingers "You know Severus, keeping me happy is a good way to our master"

"I have a way to The Dark Lord" he pulled her hand away, dropping it "This will not work"

"I do not know what you mean, I merely wish for diversion and you can provide that diversion" she drawled.

"Stop it Bella" he said quietly, turning to leave.

"You know Severus, we could bring each other some satisfaction" she said as he left "But if you insist on being stubborn…"

"On the contrary Bellatrix, it is you who is stubborn; will you never let this drop?" Snape squared his shoulders awaiting the outburst he knew must follow.

"Let what drop?" In a flash her tone had changed from soft and encouraging to hard.

"That I would not and will not be seduced by you, like so many of our fellows" Snape was many things, but a coward he was not.

"I am both amused and annoyed that you think I'm more stubborn than you are." She said harshly "However you will be discovered Severus, whatever your game, I will uncover you for the traitor I know you to be and take pleasure in ending your life"

At last, he thought, the true colours show. She was now angry but he did not fear her, she had no grounds to kill him yet and even she would not dare to defy Voldemort by killing a pure blood when she had no proof of duplicity, however fabricated.

Snape left Malfoy Manor with Bellatrix Lestrange on his mind, in turn Bellatrix watched him go from an upstairs window, her face a mask of her true emotions that she knew she could not give heed to.

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End file.
